Crossover

The Taur

The cars grumbled past, the sterilised rain poured down between the skyscrapers and the fog swirled around Six like ghosts of the millions who had died breathing it. His superhuman lungs were less susceptible to the toxins than most, but he wore a filtration mask like everyone else.

He was ChaoSonic's most wanted. Standing out was a sure way to be killed.

Almost two months had passed since Soren Byre's death. Six had completed several missions since then, but he still found himself scrubbing his face harder than he needed to each morning — he could still feel the droplets of her blood on his skin. Six was no stranger to death, nor to failure, but this event had stayed with him, perhaps because he had known Byre when she was a Deck agent.

By the time he spotted the razor wire of the ChaoSonic checkpoint up ahead, it was too late to turn back. Unmanned aerial vehicles would be circling above, armed with thermal cameras and ready to follow those who ran. Instead, Six joined the queue of shuffling pedestrians, hoping his fake triple C — ChaoSonic Citizen Card — would fool the armed guards.

The checkpoint hadn't been here yesterday. It was very close to the Deck. Six hoped this was a coincidence, but he made a note to plant some decoy data in ChaoSonic's network, leading their search teams further away.

Three of the four guards had standard cockroach armour — gleaming shells of interconnected carbon-fibre plates and proboscis-like breathing tubes. They trained heavy eight-gauge Vulture shotguns on the ambling line of citizens, waiting for someone to flee.

It was the fourth guard that caught Six's eye. He was twice as tall as the others, with impossibly broad shoulders and meaty, three-fingered hands. He was naked but for a bulletproof apron and a giant helmet of tinted glass. A patchwork of greyish pink skin and short black fur covered his bulging muscles. He looked like a visitor from another planet.

A Taur, Six thought. They have them at checkpoints now.

Six had heard about Taurs, but had never seen one. They were violent, hulking creatures grown from human embryos infused with cattle DNA. Fewer than one hundred had been made, and all were sent to the mines on the western side of the City, where they ripped out the remaining coal and oil at depths the human body wouldn't withstand. Six guessed that the earth must finally be empty, and the Taurs who had survived the heat and pressure had been put to work elsewhere.

ChaoSonic's promotional material said that they were twice as heavy as "purebred" humans, but three times as fast and four times as strong. Six had also heard that they were fairly stupid, but he had never been able to confirm this.

If his triple C was rejected, his usual backup plan was to beat up the guards and run to the nearest subway entrance, where the drones wouldn't be able to follow him. But he couldn't outrun or outfight a Taur. He could only hope that the card would work.

Only eight people stood between him and the checkpoint. He would find out soon.

Someone shouted up ahead. Peering over the shoulder of the person in front of him, Six saw that the three cockroaches had aimed their shotguns at a wiry, dark-haired man.

Six gasped. It was Agent Two of Hearts.

* * *

'Wait,' Agent Two said, his hands raised. 'There must be some mistake.'

'Counterfeit identification is a serious offense,' one of the cockroaches said.

The Taur growled. Twin streaks of steam appeared on the inside of its helmet.

Six watched the commotion, heart pounding. If he did nothing, Two would almost certainly be arrested, tortured and executed. But if he tried to intervene, they might both die.